MTR is a network diagnostic tool. RapidSeedbox support may ask you for a bidirectional MTR test if you experience issues with the network.

An MTR is a way to track network packages that travel from one location to another displaying where it passes and the possible origin of a delay.

It diagnoses and isolates networking errors. As we need both routes to determine the delay, we request for bidirectional MTR. MTR is different from traceroute as it combines the information of traceroute and ping.

The main advantage of MTR is that it will show you the packet loss per hop, which allows you to determine if there is a problem along the route the traffic takes, or only on the final hop to the server itself.

The MTR command should be run on the server and on your local computer. If you do not know the IP address of your PC, you can visit www.whatismyip.com to find your local IP address.

We ask for the following two options to be used when running the command:

On a Windows PC or server, you can download the application WinMTR (http://sourceforge.net/projects/winmtr/).

At least 100 packets are required and Resolve names must be turned off in the Options menu.

To install it on Ubuntu, please open a terminal and type:

After it is installed, open a terminal and run the “mtr -n x.x.x.x” command (without quotes) to get a running MTR, or for a static output with 100 packets: “mtr -T -n -r -c 100 -o SDLBAWMXI x.x.x.x”.

Replace x.x.x.x with the IP address you want to run the MTR to. See the example below.
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To install it on the Mac, please open your terminal and type:

Open a terminal and run the “mtr -n x.x.x.x” command (without quotes) to get a running MTR, or for a static output with 100 packets: “mtr -n -r -c 100 x.x.x.x”.
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Replace x.x.x.x with the IP address you want to run the MTR too.

See the example below:

It can happen that you see packet loss on our routers. This does not indicate any loss of service as we have ping limiters on our routers that can cause this behavior. 

This packet loss is only related to packets to the router. Thus, packets through the router are not affected. To determine if the loss you are seeing is real or due to rate limiting, check the subsequent hop. If that hop displays a loss of 0.0%, then it is because of ICMP rate limiting, and not an actual loss.

Please see the following link to obtain advanced knowledge in troubleshooting peering issues: Advanced MTR testing
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If you need any assistance, let us know by opening a chat in the lower right-hand corner of your screen. We're here to help 😄